Game Highlights (Video)


SPARTANBURG, SC-It's hard to imagine a more painful loss than the one NJIT absorbed at USC Upstate in the Atlantic Sun Conference men's basketball regular season finale for both teams Thursday night.

But Thursday's 72-71 defeat on a buzzer-beating 3-point shot by Upstate, while excruciating, is short-term pain.

In the big picture, the Highlanders claimed the #2 seed in the 2106 A-Sun Championship tournament, which opens on Tuesday, March 1.

NJIT will host #7 seed Stetson in one of four A-Sun Tournament quarterfinals played at on-campus sites with the higher-seeded team earning the right to host. The Highlanders will take on Stetson at 7:30 pm Tuesday in the Fleisher Athletic Center.

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NJIT needed help to get the #2 seed after entering play Thursday night in a three-way tie for second place in the A-Sun alongside Florida Gulf Coast and Jacksonville. And while the Highlanders lost their game, so too did the other two second-place teams, FGCU (80-73 at Stetson) and Jacksonville (81-80 at home vs. North Florida).

North Florida, the defending conference champion, captures first place and the top seed with a 10-4 record in the A-Sun, while NJIT, FGCU, and Jacksonville all end the regular season 8-6 in conference play. The Highlanders take the #2 seed based on pre-determined tie-breakers designed to seed the A-Sun Championship.

Overall, NJIT completes the regular season with a record of 17-13 heading into postseason play.

Upstate finishes the regular season with a 10-21 overall record and despite the win over the Highlanders on Thursday that made the Spartans 4-10 in the A-Sun, they will be seeded #8 in the tournament and face the unenviable task of visiting North Florida in the quarterfinals on March 1.

Upstate, which reached the A-Sun championship game in 2015, has had little to celebrate this season, but the Spartans enjoyed thrilling celebrations both times they played the Highlanders this winter.

The teams opened Atlantic Sun play back on January 9 in Newark in what was the first-ever game in the conference for NJIT. In that one, Upstate controlled the first half and led at the break, 46-33.

The Spartans extended the lead to 17 with just over 19 minutes to play, but the Highlanders rallied and the score was tied 78-78 when Upstate's junior big man Michael Buchanan tipped in a missed shot with 4/10 of a second left to lift his team to a stunning 80-78 victory.

Thursday night's rematch followed a remarkably similar script. But this time, NJIT, which had battled back from a 20-point deficit, took the lead on a 3-point basket with less than 7 seconds left only to lose on a 3-pointer that was released just ahead of the final buzzer.

The Highlanders started slowly again vs. USC Upstate, trailing at the half, 33-21. It was the lowest scoring first half of the season of the season for NJIT, whose previous first-half low output was 24 points all the way back on November 16 in the second game of the season at South Florida.

The Highlanders won that game at USF and they nearly pulled off a winning comeback more than three months later in Spartanburg.

Having trailed USC Upstate for the entire game, the Highlanders found themselves down by 20 points, 54-34, when Malik Moore of the Spartans scored on a tip-in with 12:15 left.

NJIT fought uphill for the remainder of the game and had outscored the home team 37-15 in the ensuing minutes after Chris Jenkins hit a 3-point basket from the left corner to give the Highlanders their first lead of the night, 71-69 with less than 7 seconds remaining. Jenkins' go-ahead basket completed a 17-1 closing rally by the Highlanders.

But it was again time for Moore, Upstate's lanky 6-foot-6 freshman to play the hero. Open at the top of the key, Moore fired a 3-point shot through the net as the final horn sounded. The only thing that remained was for the officials to review the video replay, which confirmed Moore was behind the 3-point arc and that he had released the shot in time to beat the horn.

Moore was one of three Spartans to finish the game with 10 points, joining Mike Cunningham and Phil Whittington, while Josh Cuthbertson paced Upstate with 15 points. Buchanan and Jure Span each added 9 points in the win.

Cuthbertson finished with a game-high 9 rebounds and Span led the Spartans with 5 assists.

NJIT had three double-figure scorers and all three of them did the lion's share of their production in the second half, not a surprise after the team's 21-point brownout in the opening 20 minutes.

Damon Lynn led all scorers with 21 points, 17 of which came in the second half, when he connected on 7 of 11 shots, including 7-for-7 inside the 3-point arc.

Tim Coleman scored 14 of his total 19 points in the second half and Ky Howard finished with 12 points, 10 after the intermission.

Coleman and Howard each pulled down 6 rebounds to share the NJIT lead and Howard had a team-leading 5 assists.

After shooting 9-for-30 from the floor in the opening half, NJIT doubled its field goal total in the second half to 18 on 33 attempts and the Highlanders went 11-for-13 (85 percent) at the foul line in the second half after not even attempting a foul shot in the first half.

There was a negative that remained constant for the Highlanders, however, They struggled from downtown, shooting just 3-for-13 from distance in the opening 20 minutes and nearly matching that with a 3-for-12 mark in the second half, Jenkins' late go-ahead 3-pointer not withstanding.

The ongoing struggles from 3-point distance made NJIT's late comeback that much more impressive, as the Highlanders somehow squeezed out 50 second-half points after struggling to get 21 points in the first half.

On the other end, Upstate, which had assists on 21 of its 27 baskets, did just enough to protect its lead, helped by 54 percent shooting (14-for-26) in the second half. The Spartans did not shoot foul shots well (10-for-18 in the game), but they made 8 3-pointers capped by Moore's game-winner ahead of the buzzer.

Looking ahead to Tuesday's A-Sun quarterfinal game vs. Stetson, the Highlanders captured both of the regular season meetings between the teams, with a 71-59 victory in DeLand, FL, on January 16 and a come-from-behind 74-70 win in Newark in the rematch on February 11.